Hot off the press: "Canon has today announced the EOS 7D digital SLR. It boasts a new 18MP APS-C CMOS sensor, Dual DIGIC 4 processors, ISO range expandable to 12800, continuous shooting at 8 fps and full HD video recording. It also incorporates a new viewfinder with 1.0x magnification and 100% coverage and a 3 inch LCD with 920k dot resolution."
Read more at DPReview.com
I recently installed CHDK on my Canon A590IS, which allows me to take time lapse photos.
CHDK is a piece of software that provides additional functionality to Canon digital cameras. I have explained it to others as "jailbreaking" my camera, as some have done with their iPhones.
It is admittedly a little complicated to install CHDK onto the camera. The hard part is that you first have to use a hex editor to change the boot sector of the SD card to make it bootable. Once that is done you just copy the CHDK software over to the card, switch it to the locked position, put the card in the camera, and go.
One other caveat is that CHDK works best with FAT16 formatted media, which puts a 2GB limit on the amount of memory that is able to be used. For this reason I bought an extra 2GB card to put the CHDK software on instead of the 4GB card I already had.
Once you have the CHDK loaded there are various scripts that you can run. One script, the Ultra Intervalometer, allows you to specify how many photographs to take at what interval. This is the script I used.
The video you see above is from a set of pictures that were taken from 11:38 p.m. to 12:06 a.m. on New Year's Eve 2008. Make of it what you will. ( ^ _ ^ )
I used the "open image sequence" option in QuickTime Pro to make the video, then uploaded it to my Flickr account (which plays on iPhones).
Here is a piece of camera gear that Cool Tools posted about. It is touted as a more portable alternative to using a monopod.
Pocket-size stabilizer: Strap Pod
In the case of museums or some public spaces, tripods are simply not allowed (though you can sometimes get away with a monopod by pretending it is a 'walking stick'). But again, hauling a monopod around is sometimes clumsy, frowned upon, or outright discouraged in certain environs. The Strap Pod is much less intrusive and bulky, so I'm more likely to toss it into my pocket or my camera bag and bring it along.
Just a heads up on a New York Times article about the Panasonic DMC-G1, which is the result of an attempt "to put the photographic quality of an S.L.R. into a compact body."
Pro Quality Without Reflex Lens
Most people -- about 92 percent of us -- buy little pocket cameras that take so-so photos. Only about 8 percent buy those big, black, heavy S.L.R. (single-lens reflex) cameras that take magazine-worthy photos.
It's not that people don't want better pictures. It's just that they're not willing to hang an anvil around their necks to get them.
Next month, however, Panasonic will offer the first camera in a new format called Micro Four Thirds. Its mission: to put the photographic quality of an S.L.R. into a compact body. If it works, then these cameras will surely earn adjectives like "revolutionary," "important" and "popular."
There's a more positive review of the Leica M8 by photojournalist Bruno Stevens:
Not withstanding all its technical qualities, the best point of the M8 is that it is a true M Leica. The ability to shoot discreetly in a crowd, to be inconspicuous on a street, and finally to point a small innocent-looking camera in the face of the people you photograph instead of a big black brick, the ability to see 'over' the frames of your pictures in the clear viewfinder, the incredibly small size and weight of a system such as described above (just ONE spare lens for four focal lengths) makes the M8 an absolute winner in my view.Read more: http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0709/camera-corner-the-leica-m8-on-assignment.html
The difference I think is that Stevens mostly worked in B&W which mitigates the most serious flaws that Kamber raised.
Photojournalist Michael Kamber gives the Leica M8 a realworld fieldtest in Iraq. His conclusions are pretty negative:
The Leica M3 of the 1950’s was an instant success, not because Leica held to quaint design and outdated technology (i.e. the M8’s removable bottom plate) in a misplaced effort to attract classicists, but because they used new technology to build a camera that was on the cutting edge of its time. The M8, in contrast, is years behind other cameras—a photojournalist’s tool that cannot white balance, consistently expose a picture or deliver reasonable low-light performance--and one which has poorly designed controls.As I said earlier, I do not write this because I dislike Leica, quite the opposite. I have used their cameras for 23 years and invested tens of thousands of dollars in their products. When working in war zones, however, my first rule is to eradicate all the uncertainties from my kit. There are enough uncertainties when the shooting starts. The M8 introduces numerous uncertainties into the photography equation. For a working photojournalist in a combat situation, I would judge the Leica M8 to be unusable.
Read rest of article: http://web.mac.com/kamberm/Leica_M8_Field_Test,_Iraq/Page_1.html
