Cameron Davidson

iView/Expression Media is back in the game.

Phase One has purchased Expression Media from Microsoft.

I wonder if they will incorporate it into Capture One and become a solid competitor to Aperture and Lightroom? Capture One is the raw converter of choice for many photographers. (It has been mine for years)

Click here to read the Phase One Press Release.

For a few weeks, Capture One users can obtain a free copy of Expression Media. Got to the Phase One site, sign in and follow the instructions. It requires your Capture One product key.

Most likely the Phase One server will get overloaded today. I just downloaded my copy which brings me up to date from my very old version 2.6 of iView.

Not just Capture One, but if you own iView you get Expression Media free as well:

http://www.phaseone.com/en/Software/Expression-Media-2/Special-offer.aspx

Customers who own iView Media or iView MediaPro may download Expression Media 2 for FREE until June 30 2010.

Featured on several Macintosh related sites. This is pretty funny!

Yesterday morning, I returned from Palm Springs where I was invited to meet with several Japanese camera executives. There is yet another medium format camera to be launched. The Brontax! Taking the best optics of the Zeiss Contax and rugged reliability of the classic Bronica medium-format camera, the Brontax DFI will launch this summer with seven new AF lenses plus the ability to use classic Bronica and Zeiss Contax mount lenses. The camera features a dual lens mount plus the ability via adapters to use Hassy V and FE mount glass. The new Brontax digital back is a direct competitor to The Leica S2 in terms of resolution. It is a 39 MP back that will use industry standard raw converters. Writing a DNG file, the camera joins Leica in support of the Adobe open raw standard.

I had a chance to shoot with the camera and it felt good. The viewfinder is bright and crisp. Camera feel was similar to the Contax 645 with a larger viewfinder than the Contax plus an ingenious vertical shutter that sync’s with strobes at 1/400th and slower. Focus was reasonably quick for medium format and included seven points across the frame. Using a CMOS chip, it shoots HD video which should be really amazing with the Hassy 100m F/2 FE lens. (I expect the prices on this lens to hit the roof and go beyond absurd)

The executives and marketing gurus were a bit coy about release dates, but the hints I got were by Photokina. I expect that the press releases and a few images from the camera will be available by the end of the photo festival this week.

A couple of friends were also in the meeting and commented how much they enjoyed the camera. One buddy is a well known celebrity shooter and he just photographed an actress who left a TV show before the end of her contract and showed me a few frames. The images were as good as any medium-format system that I’ve seen so far.

What impressed me about the camera was how the engineers took the many failings of medium-format systems and addressed them. Multi-focus viewfinder, reasonably quick autofocus, high-shutter speed sync, decent viewfinder plus the ability to use legacy lenses.

There were no NDA’s that needed to be signed.(Not sure why?) A test camera is being shipped to me later this week and I plan to shoot two aerial projects in the Midwest later this month. (alongside my trusty Nikon D3s/D3x combo)

I am pretty excited about this new camera. I’ve owned and used Bronica, Hassy V and H cameras, Mamiya 645 and continue to use my Rolleiflex TLR for film projects. I have to say this is the first medium-format camera that feels right. The ergonomic design is perfect, the viewfinder rocks and the capture rate is pretty decent for medium format, 1.2 seconds between captures and a buffer of thirty-seven frames. It requires the faster Sandisk or Lexar CF cards and the tethering is via a Firewire 800 or USB connection.

Thats it for now. I’ll write more as soon as the camera arrives and I’ve had a chance to shoot a few frames.

http://aerofilm.blogspot.com/2010/02/sandpit-short-film-by-aero-director-sam.html

Read the story about how he did the shooting and post. Well worth it. Time lapse with a Nikon D3 and two lenses. Tilt/Shift effect added in post. Over 30K in frames shot.

The Sandpit from Sam O'Hare on Vimeo.

The good folks at Alien Skin software (the makers of the incredible Exposure 2 plug-in for photoshop) are donating ten-percent of their sales through the end of the month to the Red Cross and the Community Coalition for Haiti – the NGO that I shoot for and am a member of their board of directors. In addition to donating ten-percent of their sale, they are also offering twenty-percent off through the end of the month. Which is pretty cool!

Mac Tethered Shareware for Nikons.  Kicking design and ease of use.  German Engineering.  Freeware at the moment.  Worth supporting.

http://www.sofortbildapp.com/

Here is how I work in Photo Mechanic and why I prefer it for placing keywords, captions and renaming of the files.

The advantage for me is the file info is embedded and if the file is moved or additional versions are made of it, it does not require a sidebar file to stay current.

In Photo Mechanic you can open up a folder of images. I make my selects with the number key and then after I am finished with that process, I choose my selects by color. I highlight these images and rename them with the rename command. Usually, it is something like this: cd_122309_client_number.

Initials_Date_Client_image number. After I have renamed the images, I pull down the ITPC page. I then write my captions, keywords, locations, any data that I want in the ITPC fields. You click on a check box to include or not include the information. After I have written everything I need for the image, I apply the ITPC info to the images.

How is this different than other methods of writing captions and ITPC data? In PM s the data is written directly to the RAW file. Most other programs (Aperture, Capture One, Lightroom, Adobe Bridge) write to a side-car file that is used for the final export of the jpeg, tiff or DNG. The data I embed has always stayed within the file and never been stripped except once by a client using an ancient version of Photoshop who used Save-for-web on my web gallery files and renamed them in the process.

When I export a web gallery from PM, the data stays with the images and can be included as a caption for that image and also included as an overwrite on the image like a watermark.

I usually include the file number as a watermark in case the client decides to rename the file.   I often embed the file name into a variable field incase the client crops the watermark and renames the file.  I can then open the file in PM or Photoshop and look up the original file name.

My aerial work was featured in the new issue of the Alien Skin Software newsletter.

I use the Exposure module to create the film looks I want. (Mostly the Kodachrome 25 or Portra on a level that I adjust. Occasionally I use the GAF 500 and dial it back quite a bit. Nice for warming up landscapes and smoothing the vibrancy.)

Good people and easy to use software.

Playing around a bit with a Canon G10 that has been converted to infrared.

This was shot west of Amarillo and north of Interestate 40.