You thought the Megapixel War was over?

Think again! Nikon announced the release of the D800 this month, which will boast 36 megapixels for $3000. I think this is a big deal, and Canon will lose business from professionals if they do not counter with a similar feature set and price point. With Nikon supported on Capture One and Lightroom these days, there is nothing to stop tethered shooters from switching.

Nikon D800 D-SLR Camera

 

The Image Quality Professor’s Blog

If you haven’t discovered it yet, I recently stumbled on Phase One’s “The Image Quality Professor’s Blog”. Lots of great ideas. It’s worth a perusal every now and then!

http://blog.phaseone.com/

 

Content Aware Fill

Is it just me or is CS5′s content aware fill not all it was hyped up to be?

 

“Moving Into Motion” by TWEAK Digital

Overwhelmed by the prospect of shooting video with your DSLR? MN Digitechs has partnered with Jeremy Wilker of TWEAK Digital and Studio 1414 to bring you a DSLR video workshop.

motiongraphic

“There is widespread buzz about digital SLR cameras that shoot HD video. Your clients may even already be requesting you to shoot video clips in addition to stills while on-set. What do you do? Find out how to successfully capture video and audio, import and edit, export and distribute full HD video in this introductory workshop on moving from stills into motion.

“This session will cover:

  • DSLR pros and cons
  • Necessary hardware and software
  • The camera setup
  • Successful audio capture
  • Storage and conversion of footage
  • Importing and editing
  • Output and delivery
  • External resources

“Session starts at 6:30pm and will go through 9:00pm with time afterwards for questions, networking and drinks. Light refreshments and beverages will be served.”

Cost is $95. Visit the workshop website to sign up: http://events.tweakdigital.com/

tweaklogohorizbw
studio-1414

 

Zeiss Announces Canon EF-mount Cinema Lens

Zeiss LWZ.2 Zoom 15.5-45mm T2.8

The world is changing fast folks. Zeiss has announced a cinema lens that comes with a Canon EF-mount: Zeiss LWZ.2 Zoom 15.5-45mm T2.8. You can now put a lens worth tens of thousands of dollars on your $800 video SLR!

http://www.cinema5d.com/news/?p=3232
http://www.zeiss.com/cine

 

Lightroom 3 Beta 2 Released with Native Tethering

Lightroom 3 Beta 2 has been released with native tethering support! We had a meeting with the Arden Hills, MN Adobe office (where Lightroom is developed) last year and this is one of the things we insisted they should add.

New in Lightroom 3 Beta 2

  • Improved performance throughout the application for faster importing and loading of images
  • Native tethered shooting support for select Nikon and Canon DSLR cameras
  • Luminance noise reduction has been added to the previous color noise reduction improvements available in the first public beta for outstanding overall high ISO quality
  • Support for importing and managing video files from DSLR cameras for better overall photographic workflow control
  • Improvements to the import experience in the first beta to reflect public feedback
  • Improved watermarking functionality from the first beta to reflect public feedback

Lightroom 3 beta 2 builds on the enhancements introduced in the first Lightroom 3 beta release:

  • Brand new performance architecture, building for the future of growing image libraries
  • State-of-the-art noise reduction to help you perfect your high ISO shots
  • Watermarking tool that helps you customize and protect your images with ease
  • Portable sharable slideshows with audio—designed to give you more flexibility and impact on how you choose to share your images, you can now save and export your slideshows as videos and include audio
  • Flexible customizable print package creation so your print package layouts are all your own
  • Film grain simulation tool for enhancing your images to look as gritty as you want
  • New import handling designed to make importing streamlined and easy
  • More flexible online publishing options so you can post your images online to certain online photo sharing sites directly from inside Lightroom 3 beta (may require third-party plug-ins)*

http://labs.adobe.com/technologies/lightroom3/

 

Keep Your Film Skills Fresh?

Clark Patrick writes about the future of film:

“We all know that over the last few years digital photography has grown by leaps and bounds. Digital image quality is getting better almost exponentially and computer editing tools are getting easier and faster for professionals and non-professionals alike.

What I would like to argue, however, is that analog, film-based forms of photography will make a huge comeback in the very near future — in fact, it’s already happening.”

This Year in Photography: Film makes a comeback

 

PS3Cluster Guide: By The Cluster Workshop

Did you know that you can make a super computer by networking Playstations together? I guess the 7 core “cell” processor is really great for super computing and computations that can make use of parallel computing. Also its much cheaper, $300.00 per “cell” as opposed to $5,000.00. All you need is a dvd copy of linux, a flashdrive with the cluster SDK on it and well…. a very large math problem to solve.

PS3Cluster Guide: By The Cluster Workshop.

Just an aside, the US military purchased 2200 PS3s in 2009. Picture of a military PS3 cluster here

 

Chase Jarvis Blog: (aka Pimp Your Laptop Case)

I found this on the Chase Jarvis Blog: http://blog.chasejarvis.com/blog/

Really great…. Ive seen more than a few ideas for the location laptop setup but I really appreciate the simplicity of his solution.

 

Ideas for Meeting Topics/Locations Wanted

Hi All,

We’re due for a meeting. Any ideas for topics and or locations out there?