Photography, technology and other cool stuff.

Leaf Imaging — a new Phase One company

COPENHAGEN and TEL AVIV, June 25, 2009 — Phase One A/S, in conjunction with senior management employees of Leaf, today announced that they have created a new entity, Leaf Imaging Ltd., to purchase certain assets of the Leaf camera business. The assets include the “Leaf” brand product names, engineering design and production tools. The new entity will also enter into an intellectual property license with Eastman Kodak Company that is royalty-bearing to Kodak. Financial terms of the deal were not disclosed.

In collaboration with Phase One, high end Leaf digital camera equipment will continue to be developed in Israel and marketed under the “Leaf” brand through a global network of specialized and dedicated value added resellers.

Leaf high quality digital camera backs with up to 56 Mega pixels and superior resolution and image quality can interface to all leading medium and large format cameras.

“We are committed to exciting future developments for the Leaf brand of products through innovative engineering, worldwide marketing and customer service, said Henrik O. Håkonsson President and CEO, Phase One. “Leaf customers will benefit from the many synergies with Phase One.”
“Since introducing the world’s first digital camera back in 1992, Leaf has been recognized as a worldwide leader in the professional photography market. Our extensive digital imaging and color management knowledge, combined with Phase One’s software and hardware capabilities creates a unique opportunity for the world’s leading photographers,” said Dov Kalinski, General Manager, Leaf.

About Phase One

Phase One is a leading provider of digital image capture and work flow management technology. Phase One medium format cameras, digital backs and variety of lenses 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.

For more information about the products, visit the Phase One web site on www.phaseone.com.

About Leaf Imaging

Leaf Imaging is a newly established company based in Tel Aviv, Israel,
focused on developing and marketing the Leaf brand of medium format
digital photography products. The Leaf image quality legacy will continue through products that have already become known to the world’s leading photographers as their preferred professional digital solutions.

Leaf Imaging will work together with Phase One to deliver the best digital capture solutions to the professional photography market.

For more information about Leaf products, please visit the Leaf web site on www.Leaf-photography.com

Phase One and Capture One are registered trademarks of Phase One A/S. All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

Last October I attended the Photo Plus Expo in NYC (coverage here) and there had the opportunity to talk to The Animoto Guys. There I was introduced to one of the most amazing Web 2.0 applications I have ever seen – Animoto.

For the uninitiated, Animoto allows you to produce stunning, one-of-a-kind, professional-grade music video style slideshows. Simply upload your photos (or link to one of several online galleries), place them in the order you wish, select (or upload) a soundtrack, and click “Render”. Animoto does the rest – literally. All heavy lifting is performed by Animoto’s servers.

Here one I whipped up using photos from the show:

Since the Animoto Guys are so in-tune with current tech trends, an iPhone app was inevitable. The first iteration was OK, allowing you to create videos from the iPhone, but it had some significant shortcomings, the least of which was not being able to sync to an existing Animoto account.

Version 2 of the iPhone app hit the App Store last night and the shortcomings have been addressed. Now able to completely sync with existing accounts (even full commercial accounts, like mine), V2 has truly become a portable front-end to this powerhouse multimedia tool. The main website is being updated to view videos created on the iPhone.

The app allows you to:

• Create Videos (30 second or full length – depending on account)
• Display Existing Videos (including ones made elsewhere)
• Edit/Remix videos
• Share videos via several methods
• Download videos into your iPhone

Despite reports to the contrary, videos can be created/viewed over the 3G network.

Here’s a video created using the images I had loaded in my iPhone.

The Animoto iPhone app is available now in the iTunes App Store and is free! Requires at least a free Animoto account for video creation.

With Olympus finally letting the micro four-thirds cat out of the bag, has the Next Digital Age finally dawned?

You’re probably thinking “What has Carlos been smoking and can he send me a couple of pounds?” All I ask is that you hear me out for a second. Let’s take a critical look at the technological developments in digital camera design in the last few years.

Read more…

CENTER VALLEY, Pa., June 16, 2009 – A new era of digital imaging begins today with the launch of the Olympus E-P1. The world’s smallest 12.3-megapixel interchangeable lens system camera blends the high-quality still images of a digital single lens reflex (DSLR) with High Definition (HD) video, stereo Linear PCM audio recording and In-Camera Creativity within an ultra-portable body. The easy-to-use E-P1 expands your creative horizons and its diverse multimedia features offer something for everyone. Built for today’s visual generation who lead active lives online and offline, the E-P1 will make you rethink what you can do with a camera.

Read more…

Apple Aperture 2 is very flexible regarding importing files. However, I have discovered that if you have symbolic links in the path to your image files, Aperture 2 will report the file as an unsupported format.

Case in point: I added a data drive to my Mac Pro and moved all of the data over to it. However, OS X expects the “Documents”, “Pictures”, “Music”, “Movies”, etc folders to be on the system drive (the one where OS X is installed). I created symbolic links (shadow copies in Windows terms) to the folders on the new drive pointing to the location on the old drive.

Under normal circumstances, this arrangement works well. The OS handles the translation seamlessly and everything is hunky dory.

Except Aperture 2.

Aperture 2 imports the files just fine, but when it comes time to render the previews – “Unsupported Format”.

The solution: import the files using the real path (no symbolic links) or import the images into the Aperture Library directly.

The Olympus E-P1, their long-awaited entry into the Micro Four-Thirds arena announced last year, is going to be formally announced tomorrow. Many images have surfaced including a tiny version of this:

I should have full press releases on the 16th and hopefully a review sample some time thereafter. I just hope they offer it in black…

OK, I’ve posted about my “Cool Rides” gallery on flickr before. Snazzy cars, bikes and other methods of transportation the strike my fancy (as my British friends would say) are the usual subjects. However, today I came across a press release of something so off-the-wall I had to add it.

The World’s Coolest Looking Riding Mower:

Behold the Husqvarna Panthera Leo, a concept riding mower with zero greenhouse gas emissions and built out of recyclable materials. This beauty is electric powered (there are five motors), can turn 360 degrees in place (no turn radius), and the tri-blade cutting deck flexes to match undulations in the lawn. The cutting deck can change its width, making itself narrower or wider as needed. Sensors in the cutting deck alert you to any tree roots lurking about and since it’s electric, it’s very, very quiet.

It looks to me like the chimeric offspring of a John Deere Mower, a Delorean Sports Car, and a Norelco razor.

But wait! There’s a video:

One of the questions I often hear from my photography students is “Why does my photo look fine on the screen, but the colors are all wrong when I print it?” The moment you ask that question (even to yourself), you have crossed over into the Twilight Zone known as colorspace management.

In a nutshell, the colors your camera sees may be more or less than what your computer can see/process which may be more or less than what your printer can print. Simple, right?

Without going into a full blown discussion of this topic, I will go so far as to say that once you have come to this bump in the road, it’s time to go shopping for a colorimeter.

A colorimeter is a device that measures the color output of your display (and in some cases, printers) and produces a color profile that is then installed in your computer’s operating system (Windows and Mac both support this) where colorspace-aware applications (like Photoshop) can then accurately map the colors from one device to the next making sure that what you see is truly what you get.

In this first installment, I got to spend a considerable amount of quality time with X-rite’s Colormunki Photo, an all-in-one color management solution for PCs and Macs.

The Colormunki device looks like a black 25 foot measuring tape. If anyone in your home does carpentry, be aware that they might try to measure a 2×4 with it. It is a USB powered device, so all power and data flow through one cable.

Read more…

Olympus’ highly anticipated entry into the micro four-thirds arena, the direct descendant of the classic Olympus PEN, is scheduled to be revealed on June 16, 2009. Some of the invites include chainsaws (how cool is that!)

Add to that the video where they bung an Olympus E-620 and Stylus Tough in a blender…

However, the really juicy tidbit was revealed at omuser.com, an Olympus fansite based out of Hong Kong. There a pic of an actual E-P1 was loaded. Here is the image in question:

Based on this top-down view, we can assume the following:

• Built-in flash (not popup)
• Large (3″+?) LCD display on back
• No optical/electronic viewfinder (possible shoe-mounted accessory as was previously speculated)
• In-camera image stabilization/dust removal (SSWF = Supersonic Wave Filter)
• Full/semi-auto + manual operation and movie mode (HD?)
• 17mm f/2.8 prime!
• Exposure compensation
• Orange leather is gone (w00t!)
• Top plate shows PEN pedigree

If my wife sees this, I may have to buy two…

PhotoRumors has posted the possible specs to a rumored new model DSLR from Sony dubbed the Alpha 800.

The specs they list are:

▪ 16.2MP full frame sensor exmor R (new technology)

▪ 100-25600 ISO

▪ 8 frame/sec

▪ SSI, same a900 OVF, new AF system,

▪ GPS and WiFi built-in

▪ 3.5 in. LCD display

▪ Pop-up flash

▪ Flash sync (1/500)

▪ Camera level

▪ 23 AF sensors

▪ Quick Live View

▪ Video Full HD

▪ Dust/splashes sealed

▪ Aluminum-magnesium alloy body

▪ Released early September, 2009

Similarly, the rumor mills are now abuzz with a tidbit that states that Nikon will not repeat the successful formula of stuffing their top-end pro sensor into a more compact semi-pro body (Nikon D3 –> Nikon D700) and instead will introduce another pro level body (even money says it will be the D3H). Now seeing as the Nikon D3X and Sony Alpha 900 share the same base sensor (the surrounding electronics and image processing engines are vastly different), it is not too large a stretch of the imagination that the D3H and any semi-pro offspring will sport a similar sensor.

I shoot stage and dance professionally so clean high ISO is a must for me! Sony has the finer optics (those autofocus Zeiss lenses are unmatched in quality) but not the low-light capability. This Alpha 800 is definitely a contender spec-wise if these are to be believed. If the D3H meets (or exceeds) these specs, I’m going to have to explain to my wife why I need to get one. I hope she understands.